Flippie Presens

Flippie Presens was born in Calvinia West in 1979. He shares in the community’s pride for their champion rieldans (riel dance) and drama performances and feels the community has the potential for great development.

Flippie Presens relates childhood memories of being raised by a single mother and of the gangsters of Calvinia. He also shares a story of Katjie Kekkel, a modern take on the legend of Kaatjie Kekkelbek.

Flippie Presens was born in Calvinia West in 1979 and is the youngest of eight children. He was a little boy at the height of Apartheid. His father disappeared when he was little and the apartheid police were not bothered to look for him. The children grew up with a single mother in difficult circumstances and went to live with their aunt. His aunt worked for a woman whose dog sat on the front seat of the car while his aunt sat at the back. He could not understand that, but was told not to ask questions. He matriculated in Calvinia and went to work in the Cape, but came back. Flippie says Calvinia has a lot of history. He feels that there is a lot of opportunity for the people of Calvinia to move forward. There are only two tarred roads in the township. They are a proud people are going to perform rieldans and drama at the Fraserburg Toneelfees. He says the Hantam can develop a lot, but the people must learn to move forward and not hold one another back.

Flippie talks about the gangsters in Calvinia who would wait outside the shop in Rooiplaatstraat to take the children’s change when their mothers sent them to the shops. The gangsters of today cannot compare to the gangsters when he was a little boy. He speaks of Kaatjie Kekkelbek – someone who stays at home and tells a husband if his wife speaks to another man during the day. Most women in the area were housekeepers to white households, and most men worked as gardeners. Flippie says if a man heard from Kaatjie Kekkelbek (a tattletale, and there were a few) that his wife had been seen speaking to another man, he would arrive home on payday, drunk, and hit her. Flippie says domestic violence was the order of the day in those times. He also tells of Bokkie Jooste, the only coloured policeman in Calvinia during Apartheid, who was the only policeman able to catch the gangsters.

I’m Flippie Presens. I was born 26 July 1979, the youngest of eight children.

And in Calvinia, when you look at the past, we’ll see, when I was born in 1979, apartheid was at its fiercest. Apartheid was at its worst. And mý father, according to the family, my mother and my family, they said, okay, they informed the apartheid police that my father had disappeared. Everyone disappeared. Probably went to buy soap. I can’t say that he disappeared on purpose, because in those days the apartheid police weren’t really interested to look for someone who went missing.

So I grew up and… single mother, eight children, so you can imagine what the conditions were like. And my ma lived for a while with a, with our auntie, we lived there in our auntie’s house. My auntie has now passed, my mother is still alive.

And every day in the dirt roads of Calvinia West, we saw how the white people in those days, they came, they brought – they said they were good miesieses*, then they brought the, they brought the domestic home. They were then good miesieses, because they brought them from the town to the location*. And and this woman, my auntie’s miesies, always had the dog in front and my auntie sat in the back. And that started to bother me in childhood. Why it had to be like that. Why did the dog sit in front and my auntie in the back.

But then they said, you mustn’t say anything, it’s apartheid and you don’t understand, you’re still a child. Okay, I left it there.

And I matriculated here. I went to work in the Cape. Returned to Calvinia and I could go back and work in the Cape if I wanted to, I can go anytime, but we who live in Calvinia have a history, we have (inaudible 02:14). The government does the little it can, but the youth feel that more could be done for the youth.

And you’ll see, we now have one or two tarred roads in the so-called location, we have one or two tarred roads, two, three roads that are paved. But at the moment we coloured people are in control, in the town, in the Hantam*, but we can’t really see in our community, or our areas where we live, that there is really development, that things are really going forward.

And, but we’re a proud nation, we have the riel* dancers in the community, we have the riel dancers. There are many things here that we can take forward, I myself want to take my own drama (inaudible 03:20). This year we’re going to take it to the Karoo Arts Festival at Fraserburg. So we have many things. But if only we… If we look at our history, we see we move forward and then there is always that way we have of wanting to hold each other back.

And I believe Calvinia can progress very far, not Calvinia, the Hantam, Loeriesfontein, Louisville and Brandvlei. We can progress very far, but we have to… that attitude, of wanting to hold each other back. I just think this is our problem. There are many young people here, ideas, business plans, but no one really comes forward to help them. So I appreciate the bit that you want to do. We hope we can, we hope we can. Maybe with your help. We can get somewhere.

Stories that you’ve heard about…?

There are many stories here. Look, there were gangsters here in this Calvinia. I was a small child, a small laaitie*, and this street is called Rooiplaat Street (?? 04:03) and they called it Hell (?? 04:06). Look, you knew, when your mother sent you to the shop, and you had to go to Hell Street, to the Lounge – we spoke of the Lounge shop – hmmf, you could be sure they would be standing around outside. They stood there, the guys stood around outside the Lounge shop. They were waiting for you. Your mother sent you. They were just waiting for you to go inside, to buy what you have to buy… that change when you came out. Now, when you got home, your mother didn’t want to hear about that skollie* who had taken my money, taken the money, taken the change. She just thought you, you’d taken it yourself. You could swear by everything that’s holy, you were going to get a hiding. And if you look at today, with the new law and all, I see children don’t get hidings today. That time you were actually scared when your mother sent you to the shop, then you knew, that guy was waiting for me at the shop.

But those same, as we called them at the time, skollies – they weren’t skollies, they were also people who looked after the previous speaker that was here, those guys looked after the community. The kind of thing that the young laaities get up to now, didn’t happen because the guys that we called skollies, they made sure that you didn’t bother this one, or you didn’t bother that one, or you didn’t go in there, or you didn’t go in there.

I in, in, and even the police often say nowadays, those days with those skollies, they could still, they could still handle them, but this new generation, the ones that now… their way of doing things cannot be compared to how those guys were. If they knew it was Flippie’s house – no, leave Flippie’s house, we aren’t going to burgle it. But with the new tik and all the stuff that we youth… that are in the community, the man doesn’t care, he just wants to satisfy his habit, so he doesn’t care.

Have you heard of Kaatjie Kekkelbek* (Little Catherine Chatterbox)?

[laughs]

Can you tell us what you heard?

I’ve heard a lot about Kaatjie Kekkelbek, but if we look at what… What was the “kekkel” [chatter] story again? Look, many times the, your mother was not a domestic, she was maybe a housewife, and in those days most of our fathers were (inaudible 06:18), fathers that had it, gardeners and such. Working in the white people’s gardens and so on. So the ones who were at home, Kaatjie Kekkelbek. They were the ones who, when you as husband, man – we saw your wife speaking to a friend, a male friend.

Now you have to know, when that man has come through the week, during the week he won’t say anything, he’s already heard what Kaatjie Kekkelbek said. He won’t say anything. On Friday, when he has been paid, then you can be sure, it is now the old police wagon, police van. Because that man has been paid, he comes home drinking. He has heard what Kaatjie Kekkelbek said. He doesn’t care what his wife has to say. So it is domestic violence. That was normal in those times. Domestic violence. So he only comes home to fight. He has finished, hasn’t he. He comes home drinking. Comes home drinking all the while. And so Kaatjie Kekkelbek – look, it wasn’t one person, it was persons. That in those days, and so on.

Bokkie Jooste was a coloured policeman. He’s still in the community. After he retired from the police, he worked at (inaudible 07:54). But Bokkie Jooste was, hah… it was the apartheid years. And he was a coloured policeman, among the white policemen. But look, you could be any skollie, whatever 28*, number, or 27* or 26*… So then the white policemen came to Calvinia West location. And when the white policeman got out, then those skollies, let’s call them skollies, then they stood fast. I was about ten, eleven years old at the time.

Then they stand fast. That white policeman can be whoever, or whatever, they’re not going to allow themselves to be taken. They open their knives, Okapi knives. But then George Jooste comes, Bokkie Jooste. Is a coloured policeman. When he stops, he also did karate-ka, he’s still, he’s a very fit, he’s still, he’s quite old, probably almost 70, speaking under correction now.

But when he stops, you can be whatever skollie and have whatever knife in your hand, together (??) and your balls get in a twist (?? inaudible 09:00) … are one, you’re in the back of the van.

So the, at the time the policemen spoke of the special, the white policemen. They just, when they heard, heard that the skollies were fighting in the location, they wouldn’t come, if he was off, they would first make sure, can’t we find him somewhere first that he can go with us, because the, the skollies, let us call them that, they didn’t take really take white policemen seriously, but he* had Bokkie Jooste there and he had a heart. You could be whatever, as I said, you could be whatever kind of skollie, when he came for you, he came for you. So, that is one that I know of. Mr Jooste. As they say, Bokkie Jooste.